Michigan State Film Rebates Can Be Used With Section 181 Tax Incentives By

Private Equity Investors

By Yuri Rutman

The State Of Michigan is offering a new 40% cash rebate of motion picture production
which makes it the most aggressive program in the country. Its is trying to send a
message to hedge funds, private equity groups, money managers, family offices, tax
attorneys, high net worth investors, tax credit buyers, New Markets Tax Credit investors,
and other international investors on the risk minimization of entertainment finance by
getting a 40% cash back on the cost of equity.

However, on top of the 40% cash rebates, investors may also utilize Section 181 to offset
their 75% and in some instances 100% dollar for dollar on the cost of film finance, all
before operations, distribution, and international revenues.

In the past two years many institutional investors such as such as CITIGROUP, Deutche
Bank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Dresdner Kleinwort, GE Commercial Finance,
ABRY Partners, AIG Direct Investments, Bank of America Capital Investors, Columbia
Capital, Falcon Investment Advisors, and M/C Venture Partners are all involved with the
finance of films.

Indiviudals who are financing films include Larry Ellison, Paul Allen, Steven Rales, Fred
Smith, the CEO of Federal Express, Norman Waitt, the Co-Founder of Gateway
Computers, Jeff Skoll Of Ebay, Marc Turtletaub of The Money Store, Roger Marino Of
EMC Corp, Sidney Kimmel Of Jones Apparel Group, Minnesota Twins owner Bill
Pohlad; Real Estate Developers Tom Rosenberg, Bob Yari; and, financiers Sheikh
Waleed Al Ibrahim, Zeid Masri of SilverHaze Partners, Michael Singer, Mark Esses,
David Larcher, Michael Goguen, Richard Landry, Michael Reilly, Rafael Fogel, and
Philip Anschutz

The American Jobs Creation Act Of 2004, the 2004 enactment of Section 181 of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the "Code") marked an unprecedented change in U.S.
policy toward the phenomenon known as "Runaway Production".

Runaway Production refers to a film or television production that leaves one state or
country to be filmed in another purely for economic reasons. This movement occurs
because producers tend to film in the location where they can minimize production costs
through tax incentives, cheaper labor.

Over the years, Canada has been the greatest beneficiary of U.S. runaway productions
(according to some reports, Canada has claimed up to 80% of the U.S. runaways,
generating an economic impact of $10.3 billion in production output in 1998 alone).
Section 181 represents the first time that the U.S. federal government has recognized this
impact by passing tax legislation to actively combat the flight of film and television
programming.

Section 181 permits a 100% write-off for the cost of certain audio-visual works,
regardless of what media they are destined for (e.g., theatrical, television, DVD, etc.).

An individual or company who makes an investment into Section 181 qualified

productions can take a 100% deduction of their investment against their passive income
in the year their investment was made.

The deduction can be made against active income should the investment be made by or
through a widely held C corporation. The law is in effect until December 31, 2008,
therefore investments must be made before that date and the money invested into
qualifying productions must be spent by then by the productions.

But since Section 181 also allows for all other debt costs which are usually associated
with film finance, a $10 million dollar film, where only $3.5 million is equity, an investor
can deduct $3.5 million dollars against the $10 million, especially if the latter is
mezzanine or gap finance.

Plus, an additional 20%-40% in state tax credits or rebates can be generated back to the
Investors, before revenues. And with the The State of Michigan offering a 40% cash
rebate for making a movie there, which is the most aggressive in the country. That
translates to an additional $4 million in rebates to an investor based on a $10 million
dollar film.

With the current appetite for alternative investing, real estate, and hedge funds starting to
crunch, the viability of having an investment guaranteed up to 75-100% before operations
and revenues is something that should be reviewed and considered carefully as part of a
new asset class and portfolio holdings of private equity groups, money and wealth
managers, and high net worth individuals.

Contact:
Yuri Rutman
www.noci.com
310-651-0799
yuri@noci.com